Vintage View: 1950s

B. Anthony Stewart was a staff photographer for National Geographic, working for the popular magazine from 1927 until his retirement in 1969. Although he never promoted himself nor considered himself an artist, his documentary photography exerted a world-wide influence.

He took painstaking efforts to set up every detail in the composition of a photograph, saying that his shots were planned but not staged.

Here is Stewart in 1950s Chicago with a nicely-dressed group of lady tourists looking down from the Chicago Tribune Tower to the Chicago River, Wrigley Building (notice the time on the clock!), Michigan Avenue, and the site of Fort Dearborn below.